


Timestamps: A Single Monk in Good Standing Must be in Want of a Bro

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 00:10:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16843213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: A collection of timestamps for "A Single Monk in Good Standing Must be in Want of a Bro".





	1. Baze visits Chirrut's room

**Author's Note:**

> I'd written a couple of timestamps for my Baze/Chirrut fic [A Single Monk in Good Standing Must be in Want of a Bro](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9767606) over on tumblr, mostly in response to requests. Finally time to post them here for posterity!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An earlier deleted scene, set between Chirrut’s visit to the atelier and the later Foss Day assignment – folded into the bit where in Baze’s POV: “[he] is more than happy to be a decent [friend]. This means offering a kind word whenever they cross paths, or a helping hand whenever it’s needed." So this is while they’re still getting to know each other and not yet fully committed to the mutual pining.
> 
> [Originally posted here.](http://no-gorms.tumblr.com/post/165223926016/okay-so-oodmoodfood-and-an-anon-asked-for-more)

Chirrut is meditating when the door chimes. The disturbance is unexpected, but not as unexpected as the person on the other side of the door when Chirrut opens it.

“Master Chirrut,” says Baze Malbus.

“Master Baze,” Chirrut replies.

There’s a shift of air and cloth – Baze is bowing, though there’s no one to see it and no protocol to be followed. “Your recycler isn’t working? Master Laa told me of it.”

Chirrut grins. “You can fix that, too?”

“I try,” Baze says. “I _can_ try. May I come in?”

Chirrut limits his response to a flourish of his sleeve, beckoning for Baze to enter the room. Half of Chirrut’s mind is still in the ebb of meditation, so he shakes it quickly, wanting to fully focus on his guest.

Baze of course bypasses any small-talk for heading straight for the recycler, and crouches down to study it. “How long have you had a problem?”

“It’s been on and off for about a week now.” Chirrut listens as Baze taps at the machine in patterns Chirrut doesn’t recognize. “Would you like some tea?”

“Thank you, but that’s not necessary,” Baze says, already distracted by the task at hand.

Chirrut doesn’t mind. He makes tea – two cups, because he wants to – and then sits back to listen as Baze does his work.

Contrary to what some may think, Chirrut has some skill in spying on people. Fact is, most people ignore the sightless – or at least, they underestimate the range of observation that the sightless may have, and that becomes Chirrut’s gain. By being still and quiet, or by seeming to pay attention to something else, Chirrut can glean a great deal of information from his actual point of interest.

There are challenges, of course, among them being that it was easier to do this at home than in Jedha, which is far noisier and crowded than home ever was, even during festival time.

The greatest challenge of all, though, may be this Baze Malbus.

Many have told Chirrut that Baze is a large, muscular man, but Chirrut’s half-inclined to disbelieve it because almost no one in the Temple moves as quietly and unobtrusively as Master Baze, who somehow manages to stay unnoticeable at the edges of gatherings and lessons. Baze says little, and has no habit of twitching, fiddling with ornaments, or humming under his breath except in prayer. He carries a staff only on occasion, and even then hefts it up or straps it to his back instead of having the decency of tapping it on the floor to mark his presence. His sandals are always immaculately strapped on, and any weapons are carried carefully.

If nothing else, Chirrut is vastly improving his range of observation, if only to try to keep up with Baze. Admittedly, he’s not doing very well.

Hence, the utter importance of Chirrut’s focusing right this instant, and parsing every thoughtful huff under Baze’s breath and shift of Baze’s feet against the floor as he works. What to learn from this? What _can_ be learned from this? Certainly very little if Baze is determined to be quiet.

“Do you do personalized calls like this for everyone?” Chirrut asks at last. “Or just those you like?”

“Not sure I can answer that,” Baze says, still tinkering away. “I haven’t been asked by _everyone_ in the Temple to do such things.”

“But if you were? If you did?”

Baze pauses, considering the question thoughtfully, as he’s done others Chirrut’s posed him before. Baze’s eventual answer is: “I’d probably help. If I had the time and energy for it.”

“Ah,” Chirrut says, nodding. “I’m not special at all, then.”

“If _you_ are not special, Chirrut Îmwe, then there is no hope for any of the rest us.”

Chirrut laughs at that – how can he not? (He barely blushes this time either, thank goodness.) Baze is perfectly honest with that statement, yet he blends it with a tease that’s just light enough to suggest that Baze could cut Chirrut’s ego down viciously if he so wished.

Chirrut knows what it is to be young and accomplished, but Baze barely acts like either. Chirrut knew that by coming to the Temple that he’d have to provide his worthiness of the invite, but Baze hadn’t responded to Chirrut’s riles and ribbing the way he’d thought a star guardian would, and when Chirrut had gone to see him in the atelier, Baze had found other ways to perplex him further.

Baze is… agreeable. Not pliant, exactly, but bending in the way that a strong reed bends. Chirrut had sought Baze out in the hopes of finding another wall to push against, but had found something else: a curiosity to be picked open.

“Special I may be,” Chirrut says, “but not special enough to merit your unusual attention.”

“I’m sure you’ll survive.” There’s a soft click, and then the hum of the recycler kicking back into action. “That should do it, I think.”

Chirrut stands up. “Payment, then, Baze Malbus?”

“What? No!”

“I’m referring to this tea. Which I have made for you.”

“Oh. Uh.” Baze shifts uncomfortably. “I actually have other things I need to get to before evening prayer…”

“You can gulp it down, I don’t mind,” Chirrut says. Baze takes the cup carefully, as carefully as how he’d handled the fragile kyber shards as though they were mere rock; what steady hands he must have. Chirrut waits while Baze drinks, taking polite but quick sips on the way to the bottom of the cup. “Are you really so busy?”

“Yes,” Baze says, sounding not at all tired or annoyed. If anything, there is pleasure in it, and Chirrut thinks that perhaps it’s not so funny anymore that Baze would call on _anyone_ in Temple who’d asked for his assistance. Baze adds, a little urgently, “I don’t mean any offense.”

Chirrut makes a face and says, “I think you mean exactly that amount of offense,” which lands another smile he can sense on Baze’s face. “Be off with you, then, to your tasks and your other damsels.”

Baze laughs and shakes his head. “Thank you, Chirrut, that was very nice tea. Here’s your cup.”

Chirrut harrumphs and holds a hand out for the cup. “Yes, yes, I—” He starts when Baze’s hand settles underneath his, guiding it in place for the cup that Baze’s other hand puts into it. The action is kind but unnecessary, and not only because it sends a frisson up Chirrut’s arm, across his shoulder, and up to his mouth to thicken his tongue.

“Force be with you,” Baze says.

“With you as well,” Chirrut says distantly. There’s footsteps, and then the hiss of the door opening and closing.

Very steady hands, indeed.


	2. The starbird charm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chirrut's POV of his confrontation with Baze over the mysteriously-appearing starbird charm.
> 
> [Originally posted here.](http://no-gorms.tumblr.com/post/160895379056/slides-20-so-any-chance-you-wanna-write-some)

“Wait,” Chirrut says. He hears Janos shift a little, turning to face him. “Just a moment.”

Chirrut didn’t even mean to check his cubbyhole this morning, so it is by the will of the Force that he does so, and finds the leather pouch.

It’s tucked at the back carefully, far away from any chance of being dislodged. Chirrut’s first thought is that it might be a package from home, though those tend to be large enough to barely fit in the cubbyhole at all. His second thought is that it is a prank – one of the other acolytes performing some minor act of passive-aggressive revenge, which Chirrut will enjoy dealing with.

But then he opens the pouch and, after taking a careful sniff of its contents, puts his hand in.

Chirrut’s breath catches.

It is a starbird charm. He recognizes the shape immediately – an almost-full circle broken with a point at one end – and for a brief, feverish moment he wonders if perhaps he is witness to some hitherto-unknown miracle of the Force, a reward for his foolishness.

Then he registers the weight of the charm, and knows that it is not his grandmother’s. Disappointment is a lead stone in his stomach, making Chirrut shake his head and laugh, and it likely would have settled there if not for the thought that follows.

“What is that?” Janos asks, curious.

Chirrut stands up straight. “Nothing.”

They will be late for morning prayer if they don’t move now, but – _a starbird charm._ To replace the one that Chirrut lost? But that is silly, for although his friends know that he wore one, he’d been too embarrassed to mention his losing it on Foss Day. It’s been a week since then but the sting of Baze Malbus’ quiet reprimand has yet to fade and it’s left—

“Baze Malbus,” Chirrut says out loud.

Surely not. Baze is upset with him, inasmuch as upset as he’s ever witnessed Baze be.

Truly, the most irritating part of the whole affair was how _calm_ Baze had been. He hadn’t raised his voice, hadn’t sounded disappointed or judgmental – both emotions of which Chirrut knows Baze is well capable of. Instead Baze had sounded accepting and patient, as if any flaw of Chirrut’s person was beyond Baze’s commenting, though not because Baze didn’t care, but because Baze felt that it wasn’t his place.

Infuriating! As if Baze wasn’t one of the most respected guardians in the Temple; as if Chirrut hasn’t been trying to goad him (with little success) since they first met.

“What of Baze Malbus?” Janos asks.

Chirrut ignores the amused lilt of Janos’s tone. “I must find him.”

They go to morning prayer, but Baze isn’t there. Chirrut has his friends look, but the wayward Master Malbus is not tucked away in any of his usual corners, and Chirrut has the unkind thought that perhaps Baze has regretted or is embarrassed about his giving the charm and is thus staying away in exile. Or perhaps, Baze fears having to explain himself to Chirrut, which he surely will have to, because what meaning is there in the giving of the charm? It is to taunt Chirrut over his supposed folly, or is it an acknowledgement that Chirrut was in the right that day, or is it something else? (It cannot be something else, because if it _were_ , then Baze would have given it openly. Surely.)

It is only later, once it is fully morning and Dalharil drops in with intel that Baze has been spotted in the commissary, that Chirrut learns anything.

Chirrut has no problem with intruding on Baze and Teela’s meal. He takes a seat, and forcibly ignores the press of self-consciousness in the fact that this is the first that Chirrut’s spoken to Baze since the Foss Day assignment.

“Good morning,” Chirrut says curtly, promptly. “Teela. Baze. You were not at prayer earlier.” Teela replies that Baze had an overnight session with Master Laa, to which Chirrut adds, “Was it productive?”

Baze’s voice is a low rumble, though as calm as it always is. “Yes.”

“Good.” Chirrut sets the starbird charm evidence on the table, ears open to any evidence to be gleaned from Baze’s breath or movement. There is none – though perhaps that is evidence in itself. “Do either of you recognize this?”

Teela, gratifyingly, sounds confused.

Baze does not, but neither does he claim responsibility for the gift.

Even when Chirrut presses for further answers, Baze’s tone doesn’t change. But there is betrayal in that, because Baze _knows_ that Chirrut lost his grandmother’s charm, yet he here he offers no comment, no curiosity, no questions about this new specimen’s showing up in Chirrut’s cubbyhole. Baze isn’t stupid.

Then Baze says: “How are your studies? Master Krannurak treating you well?”

Chirrut is startled by the question, though he manages to answer in the affirmative. “It isn’t news to anyone, let alone myself, that I can be impetuous. I agree that it is something to be work on.”

“That’s good,” Baze says, and there it is – that quiet, pleased timbre that has so unsettled Chirrut since the first time he’d heard Baze speak.

“Though I still believe I was in the right that day,” Chirrut says.

“No doubt. Though,” Baze adds, with a touch of cheekiness, “I was also in the right.”

Chirrut almost laughs, because that is such a Baze thing to say, but stops himself. It wouldn’t do to reward this man who cannot even own up to finding and delivering a replacement starbird charm – and surely, it must be him? Chirrut has a flash of doubt, and then another flash of doubting that doubt, because then who else would it be?

Confused, Chirrut stands up quickly, taking his leave with a, “That’s all I needed to know, thank you. May the Force of others be with you.”

Chirrut walks away, Baze’s gaze heavy on his back as he goes.

He grits his teeth, clutches the charm in his hand, and curses Baze Malbus’s ability to be as slippery as a nanku, thwarting any attempt to be pinned down. The worst part, Chirrut thinks, is that Baze doesn’t do it out of any desire to be difficult. In fact, Baze seems to be the sort of person who, if one were to suggest to his face is being difficult, would bend over backwards to make amends and turn the suggestion untrue.

Chirrut knows this, just as he knows that it’s a miracle that he even knows that much.

He sighs.

The charm feels heavy in Chirrut’s hand. The gift feels like a kindness, but to what end?


	3. The open door gathering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chirrut's POV during the open door gathering.
> 
> [Originally posted here.](http://no-gorms.tumblr.com/post/157473572571/someone-asked-for-some-chirrut-pov-from-a-single)

“It’s done,” Janos says, quiet but urgent. “It’s done, he’s noticed.”

Contrary to what some elders might say, Chirrut is capable of tact and caution. Right now he displays those skills excellently, for he limits his reply to an equally quiet, “Where is he? How is he?”

“He’s by the mavr cakes at one of the serving tables,” Dalharil says. She taps Chirrut’s elbow on the other side, signalling the direction. “He was staring.”

“Staring?” Chirrut echoes, surprised but delighted. “Openly?”

“Openly,” Janos confirms. “For a mere second or two, but openly.”

That is definitely different and definitely promising. Chirrut adjusts Baze’s scarf at his waist and clasps his hands together. “The Force be with me today.” His friends echo the prayer, and then Chirrut turns and starts walking.

A few steps forward and someone – not Baze – approaches and taps him gently on the shoulder. It’s Teela, who says in a flat and tired tone: “Be quicker.” Chirrut inclines his head curiously, and Teela puts her hands at his shoulders, steering him at a slightly different angle. As she nudges him off she whispers, “He’ll welcome it.”

This is a coup. Chirrut doesn’t know Teela well beyond her being one of Baze’s closest friends – she’s handful of years older than Baze and, Chirrut guesses, was probably a mentor in their younger years. Chirrut isn’t the jealous sort; although Teela must be doing _something_ right to call upon Baze’s company so much more easily than he, it’s not as though Chirrut wants to be _like_ her.

No, he doesn’t want to be like Teela at all.

Chirrut finds Baze by the table, the shuffling of his feet distinct even in the noise of the hall. He waits until there’s a rustle of Baze turning, a faint sound of surprise, and then Chirrut finally says, “I’ve been told there are mavr cakes. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Baze says. 

It isn’t fair that Baze can say one word and have every cell in Chirrut’s body singing in glory of having his attention. 

Baze talks of the food, Chirrut replies, and there’s mavr cake to be had, but Baze refuses to take the bait. Chirrut knows his friends wouldn’t lie – Baze _has_ noticed the scarf – but he makes no mention of it. It’s true that Chirrut wasn’t really expecting him to, for Baze avoids awkward confrontations with the skill of a podracer, but there are other ways to steer the conversation.

“What are you wearing?” Chirrut asks, a hint for Baze to think of what _Chirrut_ is wearing.

But Baze just answers: “A winter tunic and boots, and a blue vestment over it. I haven’t actually worn this in a while so it’s… it needs taking out.”

Chirrut silently thanks the Force for new opportunities, and very calmly says, “May I know what it looks like?”

“Sure?”

Chirrut reaches out and there’s – Baze.

There’s a convex chest, for Baze is apparently wide and solid, and not sharply-defined like Chirrut at all. Why did Chirrut think that they would be the same? Because so many in the temple have compared them by strength and skill and faith despite their never stepping in the same arena together, and Chirrut thought it a cliché that Baze might have the stature to match the voice.

It takes a great deal of concentration for Chirrut to guide his fingers upward, following the strong curve of padded muscle all the way up to solid shoulders. If Chirrut is a skiff, then Baze is a battle tank. If they sparred, Chirrut would go low so to disrupt Baze’s centre of gravity.

Chirrut does not want to spar.


	4. A year later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set about a year after the original fic.
> 
> [Originally posted here.](http://no-gorms.tumblr.com/post/158308866601/kerriss-fan-art-for-no-gorms-fic-a-single-monk)

The overnight session with Master Laa ends closer to the morning bell than not. After Chirrut takes his leave, he _could_ get an hour or so of sleep before sunrise, but he knows perfectly well that his time would be better spent hunting Baze Malbus down. 

Not that this is difficult. Baze is on sentry this whole week, and there are only so many places around the temple where he would be stationed. All it takes for Chirrut to find him is a circuit of the main courtyard, and then following the trail all the way up to the battlements overlooking the gates – one of Chirrut’s favourite spots, as it so happens.

Once up there, and once close enough to his target, Chirrut announces: “I’m cold.”

“You know you’re not supposed to be up here,” Baze replies. “Master Krannurak has reprimanded you more than once, so if you’re cold, that’s your own fault.”

Chirrut taps his way across the stone, and takes up the spot next to Baze in facing the city. “There are three statements in there, only two of which are true. Master Krannurak _has_ reprimanded me, and it _is_ my fault that I’m cold, but there’s no such rule that prevents me from coming up here at all.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because I asked Master Ommol of it, and she says that the temple battlements are open to all guardians regardless of level. Since I asked her of this yesterday, obviously her instruction supersedes Master Krannurak’s older one.”

“Is that what you’ll tell him, if he catches you up here again?”

“Oh come on, his only worry is that I’d distract you and make you less capable. Do I do that?”

“No,” Baze says, albeit reluctantly. “You _distract_ , but I am still capable.”

“There you go,” Chirrut says. “Guard your doors. Ignore me.”

Chirrut hears Baze shift on his feet and turn away, but there’s no question of Chirrut ever losing Baze’s attention. There aren’t that many things in the galaxy that Chirrut is certain of, but this is one of them. Chirrut is also certain that Baze doesn’t mind when Chirrut steps up to Baze’s back, so to slide his arms around Baze’s torso from behind.

“What now?” Baze says, chest rumbling under Chirrut’s hands.

“Like I said,” Chirrut says, tightening his hold on the very solid body in front of him, “I’m cold. Though now I’m a little less cold. Mission accomplished. And be quiet, you’re supposed to ignore me.”

There is a moment where Chirrut can feel Baze falter – affection softening him just like an iella pod taken to flowering – but then it’s gently herded back by his sense of decorum. Chirrut’s Baze is a dutiful gentleman, and despite what others may think, Chirrut has no interested in dismantling such a wondrous personality.

Who can blame him either? For then Baze does another thing so typical of him, which is to take one of Chirrut’s hands, lifting it up so to kiss the knuckles, and then wrapping both Chirrut’s hands with the spare gloves he’d apparently already prepared on his person.

Chirrut stifles his responding sound of delight by pressing his face into the space between Baze’s shoulderblades.


End file.
